


a rose by any other name

by kay_emm_gee



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 00:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17839025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_emm_gee/pseuds/kay_emm_gee
Summary: They both have a thing for roses, and smelling sweet.





	a rose by any other name

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt submitted to [asoiafrarepairs](https://asoiafrarepairs.tumblr.com/)!

Jon disliked the trappings of the throne–the gilded scones and embroidered fabrics, the simpering and scheming of it all. He would do away with it if he could, but he could not.

His kingship was the price that the Northerners demanded in exchange for accepting Dany’s rule. He had never wanted the throne, not even when the truth about his father had come out, but he had wanted it for Dany. She was the right leader for the dire times ahead, but not all saw that truth with the same clarity that he did. Then again, they had not seen the things Jon had. All they knew was that a Targaryen was not to be trusted.

It had been fruitless to point out that  _he_  was a Targaryen, after all. Their response had been pointed ignorance and the repeated insistence that they would not support a dragon queen, not when a man with Stark blood had a chance to take the crown. Dany might not have listened to their demands had not felt guilty about her brother’s transgressions. She had felt guilty, though, and she had acquiesced, and so a dual monarchy was born.

The irony did not escape him: it was his Stark blood that had made him a king, that had forced him to leave the snow and ice and Winterfell behind to live in a castle that overlooked a struggling city on the edge of a tepid sea.

Sometimes, it made him feel like his father–no,  _uncle_ –having come to King’s Landing to serve the kingdom in a position of honor.

In the darker moments, he felt more like his other uncle, Brandon, and that his visit to King’s Landing was futile and part of a cycle of violence he could not escape.

He also realized that death had been the outcome of either man’s journey to the capital, and on his darkest days, Jon was not sure he would find a different fate here. Tyrion had not been wrong when he had said that Stark men generally do not fare well in the South.

Even so, he had been crowned in that throne room, in front of all those lords and ladies, and he had never been one to shirk his duty. So he stayed, and he served, and he seethed–sometimes quietly, sometimes not–at all the frivolity and duplicity that surrounded him.

The one indulgence he allowed himself was his baths. After all those years at the wall, and after all the mud and blood and guts he had waded through on battlefield after battlefield, he could never feel clean enough. Having access to an endless supply of scalding water and soaps made the days feel less bothersome. The opportunity to sink down into a bath and forget about the political backstabbing and bribery kept him sane. Jon would spend an hour or two every night soaking in the heat and scrubbing off the grime of royalty until his skin was red and raw.

He did not even mind that the soaps were scented. He had tried to request simpler ones, something more common, but the maids had looked to stricken at the suggestion that he had not asked again.

So he walked around the Red Keep smelling like a rose, and Jon found that he did not mind, as it somehow helped to keep away the stink of all the courtly shit that surrounded him.

* * *

They stayed away from her now, and Margaery found she did not mind as much. It was the perfume she wore, the gossips whisper. A terribly overbearing rosy scent, cloying and too sweet and strong enough to keep even the most polite courtier away.

They were full of shite, and she knew it.

The bright and glistening members of the queen’s new court stayed away because she was a reminder to them of days past. She was a remnant of the old regime, a widow to two dead kings and the enemy of a dead queen. Not that it mattered that most of the court had bowed their heads to all three monarchs as well, because only her association with them had been written into the history books, not theirs.

And while she was not the new queen’s enemy, thanks to loyalties forged by her grandmother, she was not considered a friend to their new monarch either. Thus, she was friend to no one else either, and so Margaery remained on the outside, denied entry to the courtly haven she used to rule over.

She found she did not quite mind the exile. It was quiet in her new purgatory–lonely, maybe, but quiet.

Her dreams were not quiet. They were loud, full of screams and explosions and the crackling of flames. She saw in shades of green, with terrible memories twisting into haunting images concocted from her own traumatized imagination. She dreamed of her brother fighting with a lion made of flame, and she woke up screaming when she couldn’t save him.

She always woke up screaming these days, the scent of singed hair and burnt flesh nearly choking her as she gasped for breath. Even after she left her sweat-soaked sheets, even as she dressed, even as she curtised and smiled tightly and walked around the castle like a ghost, she still smelled the death and tragedy from her dreams until it became a waking nightmare.

And so Margaery wore the perfume, because if anything could cover the scent of her decay, it would, of course, be the smell of roses.

* * *

The king was not the first to notice her perfume, but he was the first to not stifle his reaction to the scent. She was seated next to him at feast held for a reason she did not care to learn about. Margaery barely kept up with the court news these days. She did not care what lord was being honored or what victory they were celebrating. She had enough trouble keeping her food down and her lips sealed against the screams she constantly wanted to let escape.

Even so, she could not miss the way Jon seemed to hold his breath around her. He would speak in exhales, turning away to talk to the queen on his left when he wanted to inhale. She found it amusing, almost, that the new king was so terrible at hiding his emotions. She could tell he was suffocating from her smell. Perversely, she enjoyed it.

Once, she would have verbalized her amusement. Now, though, she simply sipped at her watered down wine and pushed food around her plate.

The dinner portion of the feast was almost over, and she was looking forward to making her excuses and returning to her rooms for the night. And she would have done, except for the fact that the next time the king turned in her direction, he instinctively put the back of his hand up to his nose, seemingly no longer able to politely stand her stench.

It was brief, dropped almost as soon as it had been raised, but she had noticed. She paused, shocked, and he just stared back at her, realizing she had noticed. Immediately, a faint, embarrassed redness crept up from under his beard and onto his cheeks.

Margaery burst out laughing. It was a long, loud, improper sort of laugh, deep and unpretty. Heads turned, and eyes widened, and out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw her grandmother smile. She just kept laughing until she was almost crying of mirth.

“Jon, whatever did you say?” the queen remarked as she turned their way, her smile polite, but her eyes questioning.

“I–I said…” the king fumbled for words.

Choosing to be kind as a boon for the amusement he had given her, Margaery interrupted. “Oh, Your Grace, I’m not sure he could recapture the moment. Some droll comment on a story of mine, but I assume you already know how clever the king is.”

The queen nodded her head, but Margaery did not miss the slight disbelieving raise of her eyebrow that she directed towards the king.

He was looking at her now, curious and lost and guarded all at once.

Wiping tears from her eyes, she said, “Thank you, Your Grace.” Then she dropped her voice and continued, “Thank you for a moment of honesty amongst a thousand lies.”

Margaery rose from her seat, curtsied to the monarchs, and then left the hall. Her stomach hurt from her outburst, but it was a pleasant sort of pain. One day, she would have to return the favor that the king did for her tonight. She had felt joy–pure and unadulterated joy–a sensation which she hadn’t felt, truly, since she was a young girl.

Later, amidst the shadows and the ghosts that haunted her at night, the guilt of having a happy moment when her brother never again would did come, but in that moment, Margaery let that tiny bud of joy take root.

* * *

“That’s it, then,” Jon said, trying to hide his relief.

Dany nodded in confirmation “Yes, I believe all of the treaty requests have been covered.”

He scrubbed his face with his hand. The second anniversary of their seven-kingdom treaty had meant renewing and adjusting agreements, a headache that almost had him wishing for a battle instead.

“You are happy with them?” She asked.

Jon sent her a dry glance. He thought they were giving the Iron Islands too much, and Dorne was not giving the crown enough, but it would work. He told her so, and she nodded again, in agreement. As he leaned forward to stand, however, she halted him, a slight smile gracing her face.

“I thought you might ask for something in particular from the ruling house of the Reach.”

Jon felt his pulse jump. “What?”

“You do not have a particular boon to ask of them?”

He stared at Dany, but her expression gave nothing away. Even after three years of working together, two of those on the throne, she could be annoyingly inscrutable when she wanted to be.

“I have no need of anyone from them,” he said hurriedly.

“Anyone?”

“Anything,” he immediately corrected.

She cocked her head slightly, smile widening. “Oh. I see.”

“There’s nothing for you to see.”

“I know that I have seen you and Margaery Tyrell talking in the gardens together more than once. Quite a bit, actually.”

“It is quiet there. I go to think. So does she.”

“And talk.”

“Is it a problem if I am talking with her?”

Dany leaned back in her chair, considering him carefully. Jon stared back, schooling his face to copy her placid expression. It was difficult, thinking of his time with Margaery in the gardens and not reacting. They talked, and they walked together, and sometimes they just sat in each other’s silence. She went there for the same reason he did: to get lost, to feel the solitude and escape from the eyes of the court. Ever since she had caught him being unbearably rude at that dinner, there had been no artifice between them. No polite lies, no cautious half-truths…at least none that they told each other.

If he lied to himself about Margaery and what the time he spent with her meant, that did not count.

“It is not a problem,” Dany finally said. “It is what her grandmother has been after anyways.”

Jon started. It should not have surprised him. Margaery had even hinted at it a few times. Whether it was what she herself was after, he could not say.

As if Dany sensed that, or at least that he  _would_  not say, she waved a hand. “We are done. Escape while you can, before Tyrion storms in here with another amendment.”

Jon huffed a wry laugh and stood. Just as he reached the doorway, Dany called his name.

“When I wondered if you had a particular request for House Tyrell, I was talking about their roses, what with your penchant for lovely smelling soap and all. I thought you might want to bargain with them for discounted supplies or shipment, considering that rate at which you go through it.”

Jon scowled, which made Dany break into light but genuine laughter.

“Tyrant,” he muttered under his breath, which only made her smile wider.

He left Dany laughing, thoroughly but not unpleasantly unsettled from their conversation.

* * *

It was said that she married him for the crown, and that he married her for her family’s wealth, connections, and loyalty. An old and familiar tale, almost comforting in its predictability to the courtiers who prowled the castle walls.

Jon knew that was the story they whispered when his back was turned, and it grated. Margaery knew too, but she had spent too many years caring about what those vultures thought. She did not care to waste any more time on them.

“They will think what they think,” she murmured as they looked out over the feast celebrating their union. “It only matters that we know the truth of it.”

“Our families know the truth.”

“They do,” Margaery responded, constantly surprised that her grandmother had known. Lady Olenna had no doubt encouraged their courtship for political reasons, but she agreed to it only after knowing why her granddaughter truly sought the match.

Love did not make a good story, apparently, however true a reason it was for their marriage. Jon chased away her nightmares, and she chased away his doubts. She no longer wore that perfume, but he did still bathe with rose-scented soap.

_It reminds me of you_ ,he always told her with a smile.  _And then you are always with me, love._

Roses had become a fond amusement and sentimental token that was shared between them. Unoriginal, some would say, even vain, given her familial connection to the flower. As she no longer gave a damn what others thought, however, she reveled in the simple intimacy that the connection created. It had drawn them together after all, helping their love grow amidst the choking weeds of court.

Fitting, then, that they arrived at their marriage bed and found it covered in a thousand rose petals.

“Your doing?” Jon drawled, smiling.

“No, in truth,” Margaery admitted with a laugh. “Though I wish I had thought of it. A job well done, at that. Every inch is covered.”

“Well, then I suppose adding one more rose to the bed won’t hurt.”

Margaery shrieked in delight as he swiftly picked her up and dropped her onto the mattress. Her laughter at his playfulness caught in her throat as he climbed up and leaned down over her. She could feel his heat, and reached up to run her fingers through his hair.

“Kiss me, husband.”

“Gladly, wife.”

His body pressed down into hers, hard but gentle, and his kiss the same. As he kissed her and she kissed back, and as they stripped of their clothes, she felt an overwhelming wave of love–for this man, for their life ahead, for the woman she had been, and the woman she became–wash over her. And underneath its warm glow, and the feel of Jon’s skin against hers, Margaery bloomed.


End file.
